


the art of war (and peace)

by lovesthesoundof



Series: Diamond Games [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 18:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesthesoundof/pseuds/lovesthesoundof
Summary: Yellow and Spinel, learning together. Rated for themes. Blink and you'll miss the Bellow. Do I still need to warn for movie spoilers?





	the art of war (and peace)

Yellow never takes her eyes off someone while they're making a move. She doesn't look at the board, doesn't look at the pieces, doesn't look at her hand if cards or tiles are involved, only at the person who's about to play. Calm, level, unwavering. Spinel has noticed this before, she thinks, but it's most obvious when they're the only two at the table - which they are now, for the first time since she arrived. It's not intimidating, not to Spinel at least. It can't be. Yellow has been too gentle with her, more so than ever today. When she heard White's voice in the background a few minutes ago, rising high and warbling in distress, it was Yellow's careful hand that returned her attention to the board, Yellow's low voice that said _don't worry, Blue has everything in hand_. If it weren't for that, Spinel would be too worried to play. Still, there's the staring. She thinks she might have worked out what it is.

"You're sapphiring me, aren't you?" she asks Yellow, her fingers hovering over a pair of pawns she can't decide whether or not to move.

Yellow cracks a smile. "Very good. Even with a good sapphire in the command centre you still have to be able to read your opponent. Likely futures are all very well, but she can't find the gaps in their armour for you."

Spinel grins back at her. It's always a treat when Yellow decides to teach, and the praise makes her feel like glowing. "No wonder you run rings around me every time we play something new. I'm always expecting you to have no idea what you're doing."

"Finding a good strategy early on is one of the marks of a competent leader." Yellow sits back in her chair, crosses one leg over the other, ankle resting just above the knee. "You've got to be able to assess the situation and take control as quickly as possible. If you can't do that, you'll be left in the dust." Her face abruptly falls; she snorts derisively at herself. "Hn. Listen to me chatter on. As if any of this is relevant now."

"It is for this," Spinel points out. She finally chooses a pawn, shifts it three places ahead, checks Yellow's expression for a response. All she gets is an expression she remembers from Era One: cold, bitter discontent. Recalling White's confessions over a game a few days ago, she carefully ventures, "You know **you're** still relevant, right?"

Yellow's mouth twists in distaste. She moves two pawns a single space each. "Was that what you were talking to White about when she had her little artistic revelation? Relevance? **Purpose**? Spinel, I appreciate your concern, but I'm a few pages further ahead." She rolls her eyes and corrects herself, "A few **volumes** further ahead."

Though she knows the caustic tone isn't aimed at her, Spinel feels stung. This isn't like Yellow. Perhaps it was before, but not **her** Yellow. "Then why are you so unhappy?" she challenges quietly, knowing she can.

"I'm not - " Yellow catches herself mid-denial. She clenches one hand into a fist and looks away sharply. "...I shouldn't be," she mutters. "I shouldn't feel like this."

Spinel feels a little surge of relief. **This** is her Yellow. She knew she wasn't trying to be hurtful. "That's...not really how feelings work."

Yellow snorts again. "Pfft. Feelings **don't** work."

"You said it," Spinel sighs, equal parts weariness and regret. If she could just **not** have all her stupid emotional trauma going on, that'd be **swell**. She has no doubt Yellow feels similarly, though likely with greater shame. "...So," she says, forcing a grin, forcing herself to make a decision and picking a champion to move more or less at random, "what's coming up in a few volumes' time?"

"Oh, not for you," Yellow says airily. "Not for Blue either. White...ugh, trying to figure out how **that's** going to go would crack a sapphire in half." She moves another two pawns; Spinel automatically counters with a bastion. "The point is you're all going somewhere. You're trying to decide who you are, White's trying to decide what she wants, Blue's trying to find a way to **get** what she wants - it's all the same journey. But I already know exactly what I want. It's this." She gestures at the game board. "Command, control, conquer. It's everything I can't want, everything I can't be proud of...everything I'll never do again. Unless, of course - " She picks up a vanguard and jumps it three times up to the top of the board, capturing nearly half of Spinel's pieces in a single move - "it's all just a harmless...little...game." She clicks the vanguard into place next to three other pieces and sits back again, grimly satisfied. "Quartet."

Spinel isn't sure which is more shocking, the confession or the ease with which Yellow just beat her into the ground. The game is safer to comment on. "Wow," she says, not having to force the expression of awe. "You **flattened** me." Knowing how much Yellow enjoys physical comedy, she follows up with a _plbbbt!_ sound and flattens herself out like a rug.

Yellow's answering chortle is more subdued than it might otherwise have been, but it's genuine. Her gaze is warm as she peels Spinel off the floor. "You're not bad at this game," she says, gently depositing her on her knee. "There's a tactical mind in there somewhere, under all the stretchy, squeaky fun."

Spinel almost forgets to make the requisite squeaky noise in response to Yellow's gentle poke on the head. She's just realised what Yellow truly wants to be proud of - not war, not colonisation, but the sheer tactical **brilliance** it took to do what she did so perfectly. And now she thinks she can never turn that brilliance into something **good**... She fights down a wave of sympathetic pain. "I used to think that all I wanted was for Pink to be happy," she says softly. This is still a sore subject for all of them, but it needs to be said. "For her to smile at me, laugh for me... She was my whole universe. Now that she's gone, I...I guess I'm re-evaluating a little." She glances up at Yellow, and upon seeing only calm curiosity she presses onward. "I have all of you now, and I'm so grateful for that, but I'm not going to stop there. Playing games with you is not the only way to do what I want to do or feel how I want to feel. There are always new games to play...new problems to solve..." Blue's words from a week ago, while they watched Yellow and White play battle-cards like old friends. Now Spinel knows why she said them: of all their mismatched company it's Yellow who most desperately needs a new problem, something complex enough to hold her attention. She stretches an arm out to hold Yellow's nearest thumb; Yellow automatically brings it closer for her, as though she were someone who needed that. "I'm not saying you should be able to pull a new purpose out of your gem on the spot. That'd be a stupid thing to expect of anybody. I'm just saying...try new things with us, okay? Maybe you'll surprise yourself."

Yellow gives her a skeptical look. "Like White did?"

Spinel barely conceals a wince. Right. Yellow and White. Difficult relationship. "Like **I** did," she says, and smiles up at Yellow - easy to do, when she summons up the rush of pride she recalls from a few moments ago. "Nobody's ever told me I've got a tactical mind before."

"You have," says Yellow, and smiles back. For a long moment that's them, the former toy and the former tyrant, looking at each other with understanding and respect, and then Yellow - as Yellow is wont to do - rouses herself smartly back to action. "Right," she says decisively, putting Spinel back beside the table. "Cards. I want to play something silly."

Yes. Good decision. The difficult words have been said, they'll sit and percolate, progress will be made...and a silly card game will soften the ache left behind by a surfeit of honesty. Spinel rubs her hands together with glee. "Ohoho boy," she chuckles, "have I got a game for you..."

~*~*~*~

They almost don't notice when Blue and White get back, because the launcher just fired another dozen cards at Yellow and one of them landed on her nose. The resulting howls of laughter drown out even White's footsteps for a good few seconds, and even when Spinel realises they're not alone any more she can barely manage a hello. "Heeheehee, hi - aheehee - want me to deal you in?"

Yellow wrestles her laughter under control, rights herself, gathers her monstrous hand from the floor. Blue stifles a giggle. White, though, looks as though she's been crying. "Actually," she says shakily, "I'd...like to speak with Yellow alone, if I may. Please."

All the mirth drains from Yellow's expression. She looks at Blue for several seconds - Spinel can sense some sort of communication in their shared gaze, but she can't decipher its meaning - and then she looks at Spinel, with whom she has no such millennia-old connection, and says, "Would you mind?"

The gesture of deference makes Spinel feel at once fifty feet tall and like she might burst with pride - in Yellow, in herself, in this brave new era when a diamond asks a spinel for permission to leave. "Go on," she says, and finds her voice no stronger than a whisper. "We'll be here."

Yellow nods to her in silent thanks, then turns at last to White, offers her hand, offers a pained sort of smile. White hesitates briefly, shoulders hunched in what looks like fear, but allows herself to be led out to the balcony. The filigreed doors swing shut behind them.

"Well," says Blue, scooping up Yellow's stack of cards, "shall I make the best of this hand, then?"

Spinel watches the two bright figures on the balcony for a moment longer, White leaning on the rail and Yellow at her side, then tears her gaze away and offers Blue an encouraging smile. "Yeah," she says. "I think they'll be okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Games of the day:
> 
> \- Quartet resembles 3D chess and various forms of checkers, with a hint of backgammon.
> 
> \- If you also feel like you need to play a game that spits cards at you, Uno Attack is a good starting point.
> 
> This series might not be over.


End file.
